


I Won't Be Home Again

by PanBoleyn



Series: Maybe I Need To See The Daylight [1]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-breakup, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:52:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the confrontation with Harvey, after Jessica sends him out, Mike doesn't hide in the file room. Instead, he goes to his desk, e-mails a letter of resignation, and walks away. But the thing is, the job isn't all he's walking away from, and as he tries to rebuild his life, he finds that, in spite of himself, he's remembering just what else he's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Won't Be Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of three; story two will be Donna's perspective, story three will be Harvey's. Not sure when I'll be able to get them posted, but it'll be as soon as I can.
> 
> The first bit of this was originally posted to my Tumblr, in case it looks familiar to anyone.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine, except for the original characters who, I admit, are thinly-veiled expys of a private modern!Tudors AU I did a few years back with a couple friends.

So, this is it. It isn't like Mike hadn't expected it - he'd told Jessica Harvey wouldn't forgive this, and he suspects that was part of why this was the move she'd made. He's under no illusions - she'd told Harvey he wasn't fired as just one more power play. Mike highly doubts he'll have his job that much longer. And even if he is wrong...

 

__**"I never thought you would betray me."** _ _

 

__**"You know what? You're not the best lawyer I've ever seen. In fact, you're fired."** _ _

 

_I had no choice_ , he'd wanted to say. _Jessica said she was gonna turn me in, I'd be in jail and they'd definitely look into you, there was no way to win this one_ _. And I couldn't come to you, not when you were so determined to win, I didn't know what you'd say._

 

Not that Harvey had given him the chance to say any of that (not that Mike would have said the last bit, true as it was). And Mike would be angry about that, if he could feel anything at all besides a cold, creeping numbness. But he can't. He wants to hide in the file room, calm down enough to bike home without risking death, but...

 

He remembers Louis nearly leaving, remembers why. Remembers that he'd felt pushed out by Harvey. If Harvey even deigns to notice Mike exists after this, won't it be the same thing? Does Mike want to deal with that, or hang around until Jessica pushes him out the door if she gets there first? 

 

No. No, he does not. 

 

So he doesn't hide in the file room. Instead, he goes to his desk, puts the few personal things he had into his messenger bag, and types up a resignation letter, effective immediately. He e-mails it to both Jessica and Harvey, not sure what the official procedure is at this point - Harvey's washed his hands of Mike but that probably isn't paperwork-official yet, so... He adds a second CC for Louis, who's in charge of all associates, just to cover all his bases.

 

He doesn't wait for responses, just shuts his computer down, shoulders his bag, and walks out. He walks his bike at first, still upset enough that he doesn't quite trust himself to bike. Pulling out his phone, he almost calls his provider to request a change of phone number. But... He can't do it.

 

It isn't that he thinks anyone will call. Well, Donna might (he hopes), maybe Rachel, if either of them wants to know why he was just gone. He doesn't know what he'd say, but he also knows just cutting all ties, as much as part of him wants to, just to make this easier... It would be wrong to do that. And he doesn't really want to, either. Just thinks it will simplify it, make it less painful.

 

Finally, he gets on his bike and rides the rest of the way home. He has no idea what he's going to do next, what work he's going to get, anything. He'll start figuring it out tomorrow. Tonight, well... Tonight he's lost everything, everyone that matters to him, everyone he loved. He can't think practicalities tonight.

 

He ignores the inner voice that says he was just running away, like a child. He knows he's running away, but he also knows, better that than to have no choice. And he doesn't think the choice would be his for long. It's better this way, and he highly doubts it'll matter to anyone but him, at this point.

 

Still... 

 

He fires off two texts. One, simple and to the point, is for Rachel – they might be past chances of romance now, but they have been repairing their friendship and he owes her a little more than silences. **I quit. I don't want to play power games anymore, and I'm not good at them.**

 

He sends another to Donna, because he definitely owes her more than that, considering... He would, anyway, but especially considering. **I'm sure Harvey's told you, but I didn't have a choice. Jessica... Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, but I had to leave.**

 

He looks at Harvey's name in his contact list, debates sending a third text, but... The resignation letter will have been enough, probably more than Harvey wants to hear from him. With a sigh, he turns off his phone and tosses it to the side, slumping back on his couch. 

 

The irony of it all is, it had been going so well up till now, since the threat Allison Holt presented vanished. Actually, she's why it all started. Or maybe coffee is – no, coffee's just where it started for him, Mike knows. Harvey and Donna... For the two of them, with the two of them, it started long before either of them ever knew Mike, from the DA's office forward. He doesn't know, he'd never asked, what started it for them with him. 

 

Because it wasn't a thing talked about. None of it was, actually, from the Saturday morning they'd woken up in Harvey's living room after deciding to (a bit belatedly) celebrate beating Holt the night before. Nothing had _happened_ , then, except for waking up in what could only really be called a puppy pile. And a month and a half later, when something did happen, they still didn't discuss it. It just was what it was. Not quite no-strings sex made vaguely kinky (according to some standards) by three people being involved - they spent too much time together for that - but it wasn't something they'd labeled. 

It was what it was, and things are what they are. Harvey hates Mike now, that was clear enough in the way he looked at him, and Donna... probably doesn't, will likely suspect more of the truth, but she and Harvey were each other's first, in ways Mike won't ever really comprehend, so he doesn't think it matters. He can't stay, and that means an end. And it's okay, it really is. 

 

He'll tell himself that again and again, until he thinks he believes it, but knows he doesn't. And then, then he'll pull out an old flash drive, with a novel he wrote in college and almost finished before dropping out. He'll go back to it, because he needs the distraction, he'll lose himself in his ideas of Ancient Rome and the what-ifs spiraling from one untimely death never happening. Mike's always liked history, not for the sake of the facts themselves, but for the sake of the questions of what might have been had something changed. 

 

He'll type and type, only stopping to eat or sleep, and think about nothing else until he's finished. It'll only be then, three days later, that he lets himself look at his phone. Rachel's texts are getting increasingly demanding in their need for answers; Donna, on the other hand, only sends one like she knows he won't dare ignore her for too long. **Jessica what? Harvey says you betrayed him, you and I know you're not like that, what did she say to you?**

 

**It doesn't matter now, does it?** he sends back. **It's over and done with, I'm not coming back.**

 

**Are you talking about the job or more than that?** is the response he gets only a few minutes later.

 

**It's all tangled up together, isn't it?** He doesn't look for a response to that, just tosses the phone aside and thinks again about changing his number. He stares at his computer screen and considers. He met a guy at a bar a couple months back, a young editor at a publishing house – Somerset Publishing, it's new, up-and-coming. Started by the man who should have inherited the multinational Seymour Publishing on his father's death, but there was some kind of scandal.

 

Another Michael, as it happens – that was how they'd gotten talking that night, the pair of them. Michael Stanhope, in this case, and he prefers his full name. They've kept in touch with chatty e-mails and a couple Saturday nights at the bar since then, and Mike still has Michael's business card... 

 

It's a long shot, but what hasn't been a long shot for him, since the day weed spilled out on a hotel room floor? He might as well give it a go.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Three weeks later, he's sitting across from Michael Stanhope at a coffeehouse in Brooklyn Heights. “So, I read your manuscript,” Michael says, leaning back enough that his chair tips onto two legs. Mike watches him and pushes his glasses back up on his nose a bit – he's been wearing them because he ran out of contacts a week ago and ordering more seems like an unnecessary expense. 

 

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

 

“Well,” Michael says, steepling his fingers in front of him, and Mike kind of wants to strangle him. “Somerset hasn't been much for novels yet – we've mostly been magazines. Like my sister and her college buddy, they started a fashion mag and it's one of our flagships now. However, what with Rob Fischer trying to get us to work with him... It's not quite a merger, the companies will keep their own names, but aside from that... He's more television and radio, Internet too, I suppose. Anyway, Ned – that'll be Edward Selmere, the head of Somerset, we're old college friends ourselves – wants to branch out into books. We've got a couple other authors lined up, but I don't see why you can't be one of them.”

 

Mike shakes his head. “You left me in suspense on purpose, didn't you?”

 

“Maybe a little. If you think I'm evil, wait till you meet my sister A.J. Which you probably will, at some point. There really aren't many of us right now, you know? So the authors we're bringing into the fold for our first books are gonna end up knowing the rest of us. Especially since – I know Ned's been talking about doing a literary magazine, short stories and such. He'll probably sound all of you out for it.”

 

It actually doesn't sound so bad. The idea of being part of a new thing actually appeals to Mike, in a way he hadn't thought it would. But the truth is that working as a lawyer was never really his, his grip on it tenuous at best. “Yeah?” he asks, toying with his coffee cup.

 

“Yeah.” Michael raises an eyebrow. “But you know, when we last met at the bar, you were saying how things were looking up at work in all kinds of ways. What made you change your mind?”

 

Mike remembers exactly what he'd been talking about when he said that, and his hands tighten on his coffee cup. “Just... Things changed,” he says, and takes a sip of coffee so as to avoid having to say more. The thing is, he got hazelnut coffee, and the taste brings back memories, ones he really doesn't want to think about now, but he can't quite help it.

 

~ ~ ~

 

_The first time Harvey steals Mike's coffee, he's annoyed and surprised. Seriously? He's getting used to Harvey being a cocky bastard who thinks he can do pretty much anything he wants – and as far as Mike can tell he kind of can – but some things are supposed to be pretty much sacred and coffee is one of them. At least, in Mike's experience._

 

_Which hasn't prepared him for a single thing in this new life, so maybe he should stop trying to draw on it._

 

_The second time it happens, Mike isn't surprised, but he's still annoyed. Same with the third time. There's gotta be a way to stop him from doing this, even though by this point Mike doesn't mind near as much as he did the first time. Maybe because it's just after the mock trial and Travis Tanner, so this is a sign things are back to normal? A weird sign, but a sign._

 

_He's just going to stop analyzing this and figure out how to make Harvey stop. Because as much as Mike is starting not to mind the actual stealing, he needs his caffeine. So, he keeps an eye on how the other man takes his coffee, as much as possible, until he's pretty sure he's got it. By the time that happens, of course, the whole mess with Cameron Dennis, freeing Clifford, and Jessica finding out about Mike's lack of degree has come and gone, and Mike's broken up with Rachel after Harvey's ultimatum and Donna's bombshell. (He's carefully not thinking about why he chose like he did.) Also, there's Hardman, who may or may not turn out to be the Antichrist from how Harvey and Jessica have reacted._

 

_Is it any wonder that Mike would rather think about his coffee plan? What he has worked out is, Harvey takes coffee one of four ways: black, with cream, with sugar, and occasionally with both. What Mike has never seen is any flavorings, at all. Now, he himself tends to drink his coffee loaded up with cream and sugar, but he actually likes flavored coffees. So, he starts ordering them. Hazelnut, most days, which is what he has the day Harvey swipes his coffee yet again, takes a sip and actually chokes on it a little._

 

_“What the hell is this?”_

 

_“Hazelnut,” Mike says with his most innocent expression. Harvey rolls his eyes and sets the coffee down – Mike snatches it back up, because it's not that unsanitary. Though when he takes it back Harvey gives him a funny look he can't quite decipher._

 

_Mike's enjoying his little victory, and yet... He kind of misses the little smirk (more mischievous than his usual one) that Harvey would have when he took Mike's coffee. He shouldn't miss that, what the hell?_

 

~ ~ ~

 

Somerset Publishing is a floor of offices in a high-rise in the middle of Manhattan, but luckily it's a different part of Midtown than the area where the Pearson (Pearson-Darby?) offices are located, so Mike doesn't worry about running into anyone. He's back in a suit for the first time since he quit, and it's both weird and oddly comforting. He got used to the weight of a suit jacket, to the faint constriction of a tie, and it reminds him that he isn't a child. Fake credentials or not, he learned a lot in his year and three months as a lawyer, and dressing in a suit again helps him keep that in mind. 

 

Edward Selmere's assistant is a redhead, which immediately makes Mike feel like he's been sucker-punched. Of course, he's pretty sure she's college-age, and she doesn't look anything like Donna aside from being red-haired, so it only lasts a moment. And Ned Selmere, when he comes out of his office and shakes Mike's hand, is nothing like Harvey. He's about Mike's age – maybe a couple years older – with a faintly sardonic smile and a hint of a London accent. Mike looked into him before this meeting, lawyer habits dying hard, and he knows Selmere was born and educated in the States, but spent his summers in London. Which explains the accent. “So, you're Michael's new friend. He's not dating you, is he? It wouldn't be the first time he brought a boyfriend around.”

 

Mike blinks, taken aback, and then shakes his head. “No. I just, uh, got out of a thing, so don't worry about that.”

 

“Please, I'm dating the managing editor of my flagship magazine, I don't care. Come on in.”

 

OK then. Mike goes ahead of Selmere into the office, hearing him say, “Jana, once I'm done with Mr. Ross, get Nick on the line for me, will you?” A moment later, and Selmere's through the door, closing it behind him. 

 

“So,” he says, friendly demeanor gone, replaced with cool blue eyes that search Mike's face. “I know a little about Pearson-Darby – not much, mind, but I know about their hiring practices. What makes a Harvard-trained lawyer with everything ahead of him quit to become a writer?” 

 

“Does it matter?” Mike wants to know. 

 

“It does if we bring you on for Michael's project.” 

 

“He said the literary magazine was your thing.”

 

“Well, he would. It's his, and he's looking for writers.” Selmere looks him over. “I read a bit of your novel. It's good. But it just strikes me as odd, that you'd leave your career behind so completely.”

 

Mike nods. “Truth?”

 

“That would be nice.”

 

“I got caught in the middle of a turf war, and when that kind of thing goes down, whoever loses, the pawns always lose. And I never wanted to be in that position again, so I decided to try something entirely different.” Which, as far as it goes, is true. Mike's examined what happened from every angle, and he's convinced that even if he'd been entirely legitimate as a lawyer, Jessica would have found that one lever, the one thing he couldn't do, and used it to make things end exactly as they had.

 

He doesn't even blame her for it, much as he'd like to. He hates her for it, in a way, but he can't exactly _blame_ her. She wasn't doing anything Harvey – and Mike – weren't doing; playing dirty to achieve the goal. It always would have gone like it did, and he always would have walked away. From law as well as the firm, most likely.

 

Selmere considers him for another moment, and then nods. “All right then. Michael's office is down the hall – Jana has to make that call for me, but tell her to show you where to go after that.” 

 

Mike nods. “All right,” he says, and leaves the office, repeating the instructions to Selmere's assistant – Jana. She nods, makes the phone call to Nick, whoever that is, transfers the line, and then gets up, dropping her coffee cup in the trashcan as she goes. Mike's eyes can't help but be drawn to the motion of the cup, and then he's spending the brief walk from Selmere's office to Michael's pushing memories back yet again. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

_Mike admits it; he worms Donna's coffee order out of Rachel because he figures at some point he's going to need help, and coffee is an excellent bribe. Donna knows he's bribing her even before she brings it up, and he knows she knows, so it's not like there's any sort of trickery here. Still, he can't help but ask: “What I don't get is, you get skim milk, but then you put sugar and whipped cream in it.”_

 

_“ Because I use skim milk, I can put sugar and whipped cream in it.”_

 

_“Oh...” And then, of course, it's down to the business of what this whole bribery thing's about._

 

_The second and third times are different occasions. The first one is Donna's birthday, which he also finds out about from Rachel – apparently Donna never mentions it ahead of time to most people because if someone asks how old she is she won't be responsible for her actions. He manages to catch a moment when she's not at her desk, miraculously, and leaves a cup of coffee and a small box. It's not much, just an enamel pin of the Tragedy and Comedy masks, but he figures someone who talks about embodying roles even for something like a mock trial will at least get a kick out of it._

 

_When he comes back a little later to give Harvey the Arryn due diligence, Donna smiles at him over the coffee cup, and he grins back, surprisingly pleased. He makes sure to wipe the grin off his face before he goes into the office, though._

 

_The third time, it's half a welcome back and half an apology. Because, yeah, Mike still feels bad about talking Donna into showing up for the mock trial, considering how Louis railroaded her. At the same time, he's thrilled she's back – almost as much as Harvey is. It didn't feel right, dealing with Cameron (who was a nice enough guy, really) and not having Donna there. So the coffee's also a welcome back, and if the smile she gives him makes him feel oddly warm, he doesn't think much of it._

 

_The last time he brings her coffee before things start becoming different, is right after the mess with the stoned driver case. At first, she's glad to get it, but her eyes narrow almost right away. “What did you do?”_

 

_And, OK, maybe that's... not entirely unfair. Because it does seem like he gives her coffee either for special occasions or because he needs something. But he's in too good of a mood, and also too embarrassed, really, to admit that he just really liked the smile she gave him last time, and wanted to see it again._

 

_He's so busy avoiding mentioning that that he misses all the warning signals she's sending, but that's another story entirely._

 

~ ~ ~

 

Michael, as it turns out, is looking for more than just another writer for his pet project. Mike's experience at proofing briefs makes him a good candidate for a copy editor, and while his book goes through the channels, it's a job. And he likes it, actually – among other things, if the book doesn't sell when it's finally published, this is something he can do long-term. Not to mention, he also gets space to put a short story of his own in the first issue. 

 

He pretends not to notice that the dynamic between his three leads in the short story is a familiar one.

 

He pretends that he doesn't sit in Michael's office with its warm, earthy tones, discussing the latest submissions, and think of sharp, sleek lines and glass walls, of case discussions peppered with movie quotes. He pretends that he doesn't wish Michael's assistant, Maria, a girl as young as Jana, had a slightly wicked smile instead of a sweet one.

 

Mike is good at pretending; it's what he spent almost a full decade doing after he got kicked out of college, after all. Donna doesn't text or call him again – he has a feeling she's pissed at how easily he dismissed everything, but he thinks she also knows that with things how they were, keeping him in orbit would have required a choice. He can't blame her for the choice she made; Harvey's a better bet than he is, at least for her. 

 

He doubts Jessica would try and fuck up that dynamic even if she thought it'd be useful. Donna would stonewall, somehow. The kind of thing Mike hadn't been able to do.

 

He doesn't hear from Harvey, not even an annoyed message about the handful of things he left at the condo – for that matter, he half-expects a box in the mail with them inside, but that doesn't happen either. Maybe he trashed them; probably, actually. Then again, for his part, Mike hasn't returned the tie Harvey forgot at his apartment once, or the playbill that fell out of Donna's purse that same time. (He's grateful they were only at his apartment once; there are fewer memories to suppress that way.) He knows he probably has a couple things at Donna's too, but she hasn't sent them or anything. 

 

It's over. Really, really over. And Mike has no idea how he feels about that, no idea how he even should. He doesn't really feel much of anything, just hollow. 

 

But goddamn it, he really wishes the Somerset break room had a different coffeemaker. He knows how to use it, of course, but the fact of why he knows how to use it – the fact that of all the stupid things, it's a coffeemaker that makes repression impossible for a moment – is why he'd like to throw the over-expensive gadget against the nearest wall. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

_The pounding headache when Mike wakes isn't much of a surprise. What is, is the fact that he knows these are not his sheets, and without opening his eyes he can feel that there's two other people sleeping in the same bed he's in. However, he has most of his clothes on – by most, he means his shirt and pants and for some reason his socks – and except for the effects of sleeping in them after a day wearing them, they don't feel dirty. So... He didn't do anything._

 

_He cracks his eyes open and realizes that, no, he didn't dream up the last things he remembers. (He does that sometimes, and his memory can, on occasion, make it tricky to differentiate because his mind remembers dream details as easily as real ones. Usually it only takes until he remembers an impossible detail to figure out which is which.) Because he knows that arm, and that red hair. Also, he's been in Harvey's condo before, if not the bedroom, so he recognizes the view even if it is from a slightly different angle._

 

_He, Harvey, and Donna seem to have ended up in a puppy pile on Harvey's bed. Mike remembers how they got to the condo – a decision to go out for drinks, the three of them, after Allison Holt's failed attempt at a hostile takeover. Mike thinks it had been as much about wearing down all the rough edges – mostly his fault – that had been cropping up as it was about celebrating. But anyway, he remembers going out, he remembers that they all had a little more to drink than was wise, but that Harvey told them to come up for a nightcap._

 

_And after that it gets a little fuzzy. Mike's pretty sure they watched a movie on the couch – he thinks he remembers Donna throwing popcorn at his head, or maybe she threw it at Harvey? Actually, it's Donna, so she probably threw it at both of them. Thing is, he's pretty sure he conked out on the couch, so how they ended up here is a bit of a mystery. He thinks he remembers hearing Donna mutter something about no sleeping on couches, but he doesn't think he was fully conscious for that bit._

 

_In any case, he's not going back to sleep now and he knows it, so he carefully extricates himself, thankfully managing not to wake the other two up. He has no idea how either of them would react to an eight a.m. Wake-up call on Saturday morning after getting pretty blitzed the night before, and he doesn't want to find out._

 

_What he does want, after a detour to the bathroom, is coffee. He desperately needs coffee. And Advil. But mostly coffee. Of course, Harvey's coffeemaker is some kind of super-expensive, super-fancy machine that takes more brainpower than Mike currently has to work out. So, he hunts down Advil, dry-swallows two, and sticks his head under the tap for a minute until the cold water shocks his brain into functioning. Then he goes into battle with the coffeemaker._

 

_It's not as hard as it looks, but it seems slower than Mike's cheap one – maybe the slower brew makes better-tasting coffee or some such shit. Point is, it gives Mike time to think as he sits there and watches it drip. That isn't good. Because he finds he's thinking about coffee, about Harvey's mischievous smirk when he steals Mike's, about Donna's warm grin when Mike gets her a latte. He thinks about last night, about how for the first time since his grandmother died, in some ways for the first time in even longer, he felt at ease, like he was in the right place._

 

_He's thinking about the relaxed banter and the tipsy argument about movies here at the condo. Thinking about how the gel was coming out of Harvey's hair and Donna tugged hers up into a bouncy ponytail to get it out of the way. He remembers his fingers itching to touch, both times, and that while at the time he thought it was just his overly-tactile drunk self, in the light of day he still thinks he'd want that._

 

_He's thinking... He's thinking that he knows this feeling, that it's something he should have seen coming a long time ago. He's thinking that it's entirely possible that somewhere between secrets and lessons and banter and everything almost falling apart around them, he might, possibly, have been falling without knowing it. He knew, with Rachel, knew the flash-bang of it, not too unlike with Jenny. But this, he knows this too. The quiet sort of thing that sneaks up on you, because it's why he had so much trouble letting go of Trevor. Because it was like that with him._

 

_And, just as hopeless as it is now. So basically, what Mike's thinking is that Harvey and Donna are both asleep in the other room, he is possibly half in love with both of them, and he is entirely screwed._


End file.
